Liverpool forced into Quansah buyback call as Iraola admits defensive depth ‘very thin’

The decision at Liverpool over whether they should trigger their buyback clause for Jarell Quansah has been revealed, after Andoni Iraola admitted his squad is “very thin” in defence.

The Reds are currently without two defenders signed in the last year – Giovanni Leoni and Jeremy Jacquet. With neither fit, Joe Gomez was playing in pre-season, but has been struck down with injury.

Even before that, Liverpool boss Iraola had admitted to lacking enough options at the back.

He said: “So with the centre-back, right-back situation, in terms of defensive depth, we are very thin right now, so it’s a solution that we are trying to find.”

And there is a simple solution available to Iraola – Liverpool have a buyback clause for former Reds defender Quansah, currently worth £70million – double what Bayer Leverkusen paid for him last year.

Per BBC Sport, there are ‘no current plans’ for the Englishman to be brought back from Germany.

TEAMtalk transfer correspondent Graeme Bailey has previously revealed that Liverpool have discussed a move to bring Quansah back – but has stressed that his buy-back clause inserted in his move last summer does not actually become active until 2027.

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Reds want Ezri Konsa

TEAMtalk is aware that amid their defensive crisis, Liverpool have been weighing up an approach for Aston Villa’s Ezri Konsa.

They had also been looking at John Stones, but he has instead agreed to join Serie A giants Inter Milan.

That Konsa can play both centre-back and right-back could be perfect for Liverpool, though they have competition from Arsenal.

The Reds are also known to be admirers of Paris Saint-Germain’s Illia Zabarnyi, having been made aware of his availability after just one year with the European champions.

Meanwhile, Iraola has given an update on the fitness of new defender Jacquet after losing Gomez.

He said: “Probably the worst news has been straight away the injury of Joe. We were happy because we were going through training without losing any players and unluckily for us we’ve lost Joe straight away.

“With Jeremy we decided to take it easy with him, he’s had a lot of months without playing, he’s been training very well, but we’re going to take it easy with him. He will play probably in the last game of this U.S. tour, he will have time to have minutes, but we were kind of happy, but we’ve lost one now.”

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